ooooh a metal detector would be cool.
My other dd's got a birthday in Aug. Last year she wanted to do a "vet" theme since she wanted...and I say past tense because she may have changed her mind due to finding out she'd have to look at animal blood. We had everyone bring a "patient," or a stuffed animal. I had bandages, all shapes of bandaids...lil round ones, regular ones, big patches... I set up one room in my home to be the vet and painted a poster board with pet paws and the name of the animal clinic on it and hung it up. It had a desk with a small laptop toy computer with pens and tablets.
I had a waiting room with chairs and pet books. The vet table with the dr. kit we had plus a basket full of the bandages and cotton balls... I printed out animal x-rays from the computer and taped them onto poster board and wrote X-RAY on top... I had a snake, turtle, bird, cat head, pregnant dog tummy, and dog leg X-rays taped on there--those were really cool. I used a laundry basket with a baby blanket as the "x-ray" machine. I had a grooming area... used a baby bath tub, had towels, a pretend blow drier, brushes, combs, and pre-made ribbons (bought colorful rubber bands & tied different ribbons on them so they didn't have to know how to tie to wrap them on their pets ears or what ever).
I used our real pet carriers, bird cages, kennels and toys as accessories for the clinic. That was a fun one too. I grilled hamburgers & hot dogs, had mac n chz, and a watermelon. And of course a cake that had Little Pet shop figures on it.
This year I asked her if she thought having an ice cream parlor/ candy store theme would be fun and she agreed. I want to use her antique gum ball machine. I plan on having lots of different ice creams, toppings: caramel, fudge, whip cream, cherries, bananas, blueberries, candy sprinkles... so they can make their own sundaes. I saw some cute things for goody bags too. Plus they can bring their swimsuits and do the slip and slide and crazy sprinkler.
I'm totally getting into this... I think I may be birthday party addicted.